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Defendant teachers, deceased student Emily: »She's gone. Just not there anymore.”

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[M] Oliver Berg / picture alliance; Private

The Large Criminal Chamber of the Mönchengladbach Regional Court has sentenced two teachers to fines of 23,400 and 7,200 euros for negligent homicide. The two women, 34 and 60 years old, accompanied a study trip to London in June 2019. During the trip, 13-year-old Emily, who had suffered from diabetes since she was seven, fell ill. The girl was taken to a hospital on the day of departure, where she died a day later.

Before the trial began, the public prosecutor's office assumed that Emily's death could "most likely" have been avoided if she had received medical treatment earlier. The teachers admitted in the trial that they had not asked about the health problems of the students traveling with them before the trip.

Kay Schierwagen, the girl's father, addressed the two defendants again before the verdict was announced: "Emily is and was my only child. My everything.” Her death “tore his heart out,” said the 48-year-old. Emily would be 18 years old now, he wondered what she would look like now, whether she had started training or gotten her driving license. They still had so many plans.

"She is gone. Just not there anymore,” he said after the hearing. Learning that her death could have been avoided left him “stunned and incredibly sad,” said Schierwagen. It made his pain even worse. »As a father, I cannot and do not want to accept her death. No one should lose their child if they are under the supervision of their teachers!”

The two teachers have no criminal record. They said in the trial that they knew nothing about Emily's diabetes.

It is thanks to the father and his lawyer Wolfgang Steffen that the child's death is dealt with legally. The public prosecutor initially stopped the investigation against four teachers who had accompanied the trip to London. Lawyer Steffen then obtained a new investigation against the two now convicted.

The public prosecutor followed his argument and filed charges of negligent homicide in March 2022, which the Mönchengladbach regional court rejected almost a year later. Steffen and the public prosecutor filed a complaint. The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court finally admitted the charges.

jjc